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Abanana peel, calledbanana skin in British English, is theouter covering of abanana. Banana peels are used as food for animals, an ingredient in cooking, inwater purification, for manufacturing of severalbiochemical products as well as for jokes and comical situations.
There areseveral methods to remove a peel from a banana.
Bananas are a popular fruit consumed worldwide with a yearly production of over 165 milliontonnes in 2011. Once the peel is removed, the fruit can be eaten raw or cooked and the peel is generally discarded. Because of this removal of the banana peel, a significant amount of organic waste is generated.[1][2]
Banana peels are sometimes used asfeedstock for cattle, goats, pigs, monkeys, poultry, rabbits, fish, zebras and several other species, typically on small farms in regions where bananas are grown.[3][4][5] There are some concerns over the impact oftannins contained in the peels on animals that consume them.[6][7]
The nutritional value of banana peel depends on the stage of maturity and thecultivar; for exampleplantain peels contain less fibre than dessert banana peels, andlignin content increases with ripening (from 7 to 15% dry matter). On average, banana peels contain 6-9% dry matter ofprotein and 20-30% fibre (measured asNDF). Green plantain peels contain 40%starch that is transformed into sugars after ripening. Green banana peels contain much less starch (about 15%) when green than plantain peels, while ripe banana peels contain up to 30% free sugars.[6]
Banana peels are also used for water purification,[8] to produceethanol,[9]cellulase,[10]laccase,[11] asfertilizer[12] and incomposting.[13]
Cooking with banana peel is common in Southeast Asian, Indian and Venezuelan cuisine where the peel of bananas and plantains is used in recipes.[14] In April 2019, a vegan pulled pork recipe using banana peel by food blogger Melissa Copeland aka The Stingy Vegan went viral.[15] In 2020,The Great British Bake Off winnerNadiya Hussain revealed she uses banana peels as an alternative to pulled pork when making burgers in an effort to reduce food waste.[16] Later that year television chefNigella Lawson used banana skin as an ingredient for a curry on her BBC show.[17]
Banana peel is also part of the classicphysical comedyslapstickvisual gag, the "slipping on a banana peel".[18][19] This gag was already seen as classic in 1920s America.[20] It can be traced to the late 19th century, when banana peel waste was considered a public hazard in a number of American towns.[21][22] Although banana peel-slipping jokes date to at least 1854, they became much more popular, beginning in the late-1860s, when the large-scale importation of bananas made them more readily available.[23][unreliable source?] Vaudeville comedianCal Stewart included banana peel jokes in one of the earliestcomedy albums,Uncle Josh in a Department Store in 1903.[24] Before banana peels were readily available, orange peels and other fruit skins were recognized as slippery and used in jokes, but not to the extent of banana peels.[23][unreliable source?] Slipping on a banana peel was at one point a real concern with municipal ordinances governing the disposal of the peel.[25]
Thecoefficient of friction of banana peel on a linoleum surface was measured at just 0.07, about half that of lubricated metal on metal. Researchers attribute this to the crushing of the naturalpolysaccharidefolliculargel, releasing a homogenoussol.[26] This finding was awarded the 2014Ig Nobel Prize for physics.[27]
MythBusters would later test the gag to see if it is as effective as portrayed in media. The results were labeled as "busted", as it turned out that slipping on banana peels every time someone trod upon them is something exaggerated in fiction; it takes much more specific circumstances for the scenario to occur reliably in reality.[citation needed]
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Most people peel a banana by cutting or snapping the stem and divide the peel into sections while pulling them away from the bared fruit. Another way of peeling a banana is done in the opposite direction, from the end with the brownish floral residue—a way usually perceived as "upside down".
When the tip of a banana is pinched with two fingers, it will split and the peel comes off in two clean sections. The inner fibres, or "strings", between the fruit and the peel will remain attached to the peel and the stem of the banana can be used as a handle when eating the banana.
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There has been a widespread belief that banana peels contain apsychoactive substance, and thatsmoking them may produce a "high", or a sense of relaxation. This belief, which may be a rumor orurban legend, is often associated with the 1966 song "Mellow Yellow" byDonovan. A recipe for the extraction of the fictional chemicalbananadine is found inThe Anarchist Cookbook of 1971.
